Because heating cables have very fine wires therein, it is the current practice for the manufacture of heating cables to supply a cold lead soldered to each heating cable. The installation of heating wires is usually done by a certified electrician. The heating wires are secured in a pattern over a surface to be heated, usually a floor, and a cementitious material is poured and sets thereover. A portion of these cold lead wires are therefore embedded at one end into the cementitious material. The other end of the feed cold lead wire needs to be connected to a thermostat through which the electrical supply is regulated. One can imagine that if a surface to be heated is provided with two or more of these heating cables then two or more feed cold lead wires need to be connected to the thermostat. Because these cold lead wires have relatively heavy gauge wires, namely 12 and 14 gauge, the interconnection of several of these wires in a thermostat is not possible and often requires the installation of a further junction box. It is also necessary to run these several cold lead wires in a wall below the thermostat and this can also prove problematic.
It is a further common practice to provide heating cables in different lengths with cold lead wires of different gauges depending on the voltage rating of the supply source. Accordingly, the electricians who install these heating cables need to carry an inventory of heating cables of different lengths and also heating cables having cold lead wires of different ratings and length. Because of stringent electrical certification by the Industry, the connection between the fine wires of the heating cables to the heavier gauge wires of the cold lead wires, this connection is done by the manufacturer. Because there could be several cold leads in an installation, several connectors need to be disposed in cavities dug into the sub-floor so that they do not protrude above the heating wires when the cement slurry is poured thereover. This is accordingly a time consuming installation.
It would, of course, be desirable that the manufacturers of these heating cables supply the heating cables to installers without the cold lead wire attached thereto and wherein the installer would connect the cold leads to these heating wires without the risk of making bad electrical connections. Such would solve the problem of costs in carrying large inventories by installers. It would also be desirable to resolve the problem of having to run two or more cold wires into a thermostat.